Glenn Beck, National Decline And The Story Of The Roman Empire

Townhall.com ^ | April 28, 2012 | Jerry Bowyer

[Kaslin]

In my last installment in this series I argued that talk show host Glenn Beck was raising legitimate concerns about the state of the nation, but that he had a history of predictions of imminent disasters which did not pan out. Why didn’t they? After all, the left really does have a strong totalitarian bent. No nation is guaranteed eternal life, let alone eternal prosperity and hegemony. And the United States is, indeed, aggressively moving in the wrong direction.

 

So why didn’t the dollar collapse? Why is it still the reserve currency of the world? Why don’t we have hyperinflation? Why did gold stall and then fall last summer? Was there a food shortage? Nope. Widespread urban violence? Nope. Depression, stock market collapse, bond market collapse? Nope, nope and nope. Why not?

 

Because that’s not how it works. Great nations do not suddenly lose reserve currency status or hyperinflate or collapse economically—not unless they lose a war or are destroyed by natural disasters. The archetypal decline and fall story is that of Rome. It was the eternal city, supposedly, but nevertheless its gates came crashing down and its cities were trodden over by rude barbarian feet. And all of this happened just as the great classical philosophers had warned it would.

 

The Catos and Ciceros of Rome warned about the decline of Rome as it was first turning away from Republic and toward empire.  But Rome didn’t actually ‘fall’ in a definitive sense until  498 years after the death of Cicero and 499 years until after the death of Cato. The process of lost freedoms, corruption, imperial overreach and decay, and final definitive collapse lasted almost as long as the rise of the Roman republic; the great age of political warning appeared as the midpoint of Rome’s history, not the end. The classical conservative statesmen were right, but premature. History, like Clouseau, declared, “Not now, Cato,” and delayed its judgment for half of a millennium.

 

And the currency markets followed the same pattern. Empire, bread and circuses, all cost a lot of money, and were partially funded by currency debasement. However, the Roman Denarius did not collapse in value overnight.  The long journey from a denarius composed of 6.8 grams of silver struck in 269 BC, through the first debasement down to 4.5 grams half a century later, then under Caeser Augustus down to 3.9, under the loathsome Nero 3.4 grams, under a long series of debasing emperors down to 3 grams and finally in the mid-2nd century AD phased out of existence and replaced by other currencies, all told took about half a millennium.  This is a remarkable feat considering the way that Rome, and by extension her currency, was hated by the world she had enslaved. The famous passage in the synoptic Gospels in which the religious leaders ask Jesus whether they should pay taxes to Caesar turns partly on Rome’s status and as issuer of the known world’s reserve currency.

“20 So they (the chief priests and the scribes inserted by J.B.) watched Him,and sent spies who pretended to be righteous, that they might seize on His words, in order to deliver Him to the power and the authority of the governor.

21 Then they asked Him, saying, “Teacher, we know that You say and teach rightly, and You do not show personal favoritism, but teach the way of God in truth: 22 Is it lawful for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”

23 But He perceived their craftiness, and said to them, “Why do you test Me?24 Show Me a denarius. Whose image and inscription does it have?” They answered and said, “Caesar’s.”

25 And He said to them, “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

26 But they could not catch Him in His words in the presence of the people. And they marveled at His answer and kept silent.”

 

The story illustrates a great deal about currency relations between the nations. First, the premise of the story is that the Roman coinage was hated. The Roman Denarius was inscribed with an image of Caesar Tiberius and the title ‘Son of the Divine Augustus’, in other words, ‘Son of God.’ It was a reminder of both the political and the religious domination of Rome.  This was the same coin used to pay the equally hated Roman poll tax. If Jesus said to pay, He would be associating himself with the unpopular Romans. If He said not to pay, He would be fostering rebellion and the Romans would execute Him.

 

Jesus skillfully turned the question around. He Cuba-Goodingly asks them to ‘Show me the money.’ and voila, there it is; they have the money. The religious leaders who have been railing against the evil Romans and their wicked idolatrous money, just happen to have some there in their pockets. Point made: The Roman Denarius was silver backed, stable (at least at that point in history) and accepted for trade purposes throughout the known world.

Rome maintained a pirate-suppressing free trading system across the known world and the Jews, along with every other group in the empire benefited from it.  Jesus’ friend, Joseph of Arimathea had become wealthy (according to early church historians) as a tin import/export merchant between Jerusalem and Britain. Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth exported balsam around the world. His disciples were from Bethsaida and Capernaum, not so much fishing villages, but more fishing industrial hubs which sold not just salted fish, but also mass manufactured fishing equipment around the world. St. Paul traveled the Ancient world partly in tow to Lydia who was an international dyed clothing distributor. All of this was transacted with the Roman Denarius. It didn’t matter that it was hated. It mattered that it was universally accepted for commercial purposes and held its value better than the alternatives.

 

When the leaders of Jerusalem revolted against Rome the first time in 66 AD, they threw out the hated Roman silver coins and minted patriotic shekels, out of the baser bronze. The coinage, of course traded at much lower values against the Roman coins despite strong political pressure for its use. When Rome destroyed Jerusalem in 70 AD, they printed a special commemorative coin depicting a woman weeping next to an olive tree (a traditional symbol of Israel which sold olive products around the world in Roman denarius-denominated transactions), to symbolize the widows of Israel weeping for their departed husbands. When Israel Revolted again 63 years later under Bar Kochba  (which translates as son of the star, a reference to the prophecy that the messiah would be born under a star) it rounded up the Roman coins and reminted them with Hebrew lettering and patriotic phrases.

 

As you can see, coins in the ancient world were spiritually, culturally and politically charged matters.  But in the end, the value of the metal determined the value of the coin, a fact perhaps grudgingly learned between the first rebellion and its debased, bronze shekels and the second rebellion with its re-stamped silver denarii. Not being a numismatist, my observations on this matter may well be incorrect, but I feel confident that someone will be willing to step forward and offer any needed corrections.

 

Not all Jewish coinage was used for rebellion propaganda purposes; more often it was used for quisling propaganda purposes. The Rah-rah-Rome Herodian dynasty routinely minted coins with Latin or Greek lettering, honoring Caser and the various Herods. The cultural syncretism visible in the presence of images such as Roman eagles and Palestinian palm branches.  Herod Agrippa, the ruler during Jesus adulthood, minted a coin which showed three ears of barley. This may well be the explanation for Jesus’ quizzical reference to Herod as “A reed shaken by the wind”, which may be more a matter of political satire aimed at Herod’s shaky alliance with Rome, then of some mystical spiritual metaphor.

 

The point of all of this is that as shaky as Rome’s coinage was and as much as it was hated by captive people of the empire, it would last another 200 years due chiefly to a lack of alternatives. Reserve currencies do not generally crash quickly, though they do crash. Great nations are generally granted many reprieves, many amnesties, many second chances. I’m not saying that we’ve got another 200 years, if we continue down our current path of debt and debasement. I don’t know how much time we have for course corrections.

All this amounts to the following:  I’m not ready to give up on us yet, but I’m definitely read to hedge my bets.

[svcw]

None of Beck’s predictions panned out.........

[SuzyQue]

Yes, but the more important point, at least, is that, following the Roman model, we will continue the inexorable downward slide, each new generation only somewhat aware of the losses of the last.

[hinckley buzzard]

The point is a good one. Predictions of imminent collapse based on "the fall of Rome" ignore that such a collapse may take centuries, as did the fall of the Roman Empire.

[faucetman]

As one famous intellectual said “Managing the decay”

[SuzyQue]

Yep. We can slow it, but I don’t think we can stop it now.

[GBA]

Beck admits his predictions come true, but his timing is usually off a bit. Take what he says seriously. Beck is one of Paul Revere’s riders, no doubt about it. He’s the one on the white horse.

[netmilsmom]

His prediction that the OWS movement wouldn’t go away, panned out.
His prediction that racial violence would uptick, panned out.

Doom and gloom sells.
But not everything he says is wrong.

[lurk]

Glenn is very much influenced by Cleon Skousen.

Every great nation dies eventually. Some go overnight, like the Babylonians, and some go through a long sigh, like Rome.

God’s in charge. Isa. 40.

[Nowhere Man]

Yes, but the more important point, at least, is that, following the Roman model, we will continue the inexorable downward slide, each new generation only somewhat aware of the losses of the last.

Everytime I look up at the Moon, I say to myself, "we put men up there and I remember seeing that when I was a small child." I'll be 46 in July. I often wonder when I'm an old an and point to the Moon and telling the children then, "yes, there was a time when we were able to put men on the Moon unlike now."

There is already a generation of adults out there that have never seen a man walk on the Moon live on TV. You'd have to be over 40 to remember seeing that. Shame, really. B-(

[Thidwick]

Many up-and-coming dictators have managed to oppress the population in just a few short years. Keeping our currency under communism is not so comforting.

[svcw]

I was just quoting the article.

[netmilsmom]

Oh! Sorry, I didn’t realize. My apologizes.

[hinckley buzzard]

Rome actually had its own significant renaissance in the 6th century under Justinian the Great. He sough to revive the old empire and succeeded in recapturing North Africa, Italy, Sicily and southern Spain, re-establishing Roman control of the "Mare Nostrum" from the Atlantic ocean to the eastern shore of the Black Sea where they had not been before.

He revitalized the economy with an austerity program, reformed Roman law and standardized it with the "Justinian Code" which became a foundation for much of western civil law thereafter. He was a true Roman, who spoke Latin as his native tongue, the last ruler to do so. He rejoined the west with the Byzantine empire, launching a golden age of Byzantium.

The renewed empire became prosperous and strong but was stymied in the end by a crippling epidemic of bubonic plague. And, as always with the Romans, when he died there was no clear preparation for succession.

Will America produce a Justinian renewal? She certainly could.

[hinckley buzzard]

Rome actually had its own significant renaissance in the 6th century under Justinian the Great. He sought to revive the old empire and succeeded in recapturing North Africa, Italy, Sicily and southern Spain, re-establishing Roman control of the "Mare Nostrum" from the Atlantic ocean to the eastern shore of the Black Sea where they had not been before.

He revitalized the economy with an austerity program, reformed Roman law and standardized it with the "Justinian Code" which became a foundation for much of western civil law thereafter. He was a true Roman, who spoke Latin as his native tongue, the last ruler to do so. He rejoined the west with the Byzantine empire, launching a golden age of Byzantium.

The renewed empire became prosperous and strong but was stymied in the end by a crippling epidemic of bubonic plague. And, as always with the Romans, when he died there was no clear preparation for succession.

Will America produce a Justinian renewal? She certainly could.

[muawiyah]

We finally put an end to the Empire Rome started about 1919 with the dismantlement of the Ottoman Empire.

There are still some legal problems ~

[oldbrowser]

But Rome didn’t actually ‘fall’ in a definitive sense until 498 years after the death of Cicero and 499 years until after the death of Cato.

In Roman days they walked or rode donkeys. Now we have instantaneous communications around the world and are testing an airplane that goes 13,000 miles per hour.

Everything is moving a lot faster and I expect our decline will be faster. I'm guessing a couple of generations, especially if we keep electing people like we currently have in office.

[atomic_dog]

The Romans continued to use a medium of exchange with some, however small and decreasing, intrinsic value that acted as a brake however ineffective it ultimately was. The Romans never imagined such things as credit default swaps (CDS), high frequency trading (HFT) or commodities exchanges that enable the manipulation of prices up and down. They also never had the ability to conjure circulating currency out of thin air.

The economic mess is Euroland has not sunk to the level I expected by now. They have an amazing variety of tricks propping it up, foremost among them the willingness to lie completely and absolutely about what is going on. Eventually the whole house of cards is going to collapse and it will probably happen here in as little as three days. The average uninformed American will probably describe it as "all the money just vanished into thin air."

[Oatka]

Everything is moving a lot faster and I expect our decline will be faster.

That's my take on it as well. It MAY take longer than I'll live, but just in case . . .

[Molon Labbie]

I think the US, and perhaps other Western nations as well are done. We have too many countervailing cultures, many diametrically (and violently) opposed to each other to continue on in our current configuration.

How can you have peace and prosperity under such Tower of Babel conditions?

Glenn Beck may not be right on all his predictions but he is not afraid to call the adversary, the adversary. He inspires vigilance instead of Dancing With The Stars stupor and apathy.

Frankly, the truly engaged and thoughtful do not need Glenn Beck to reaffirm their suspicions as to our eventual fate. It is helpful to have a national voice to rouse those who are sleeping.